The following description includes information that may be useful in understanding the present invention. It is not an admission that any of the information provided herein is prior art or relevant to the presently claimed invention, or that any publication specifically or implicitly referenced is prior art.
We are living through the most rapid acceleration of data generation in history: 90% of the world's data has only come into existence since 2010. Buried within the vast and ever-expanding store of data is valuable information. This value cuts across disparate domains including: the biological and life sciences, where cures for disease are being unraveled from the immense quantities of gathered genomic data; the physical sciences, where our understanding of reality is being pieced together at research centers worldwide (e.g., CERN); and the business domain, where social networking, ecommerce and internet search providers seek to monetize every byte of user data to which they gain access.
The more people who have access to this data, the more thoroughly it can be explored and hence the more value can be derived from it; accessibility is one of five key attributes of data. While this is apparent to many Internet companies (e.g., Yahoo has made their indices available to the public through Yahoo! Boss2) it is only beginning to permeate into the general public's consciousness. For example, the City of Toronto has made much of the data it collects available online.
As the amount of data created and stored by organizations continues to increase, attention is turning to extracting knowledge from that raw data, including making some data available outside of the organization to enable data analytics. A common scenario involves retail industry making data available to its suppliers. The adoption of technologies such as the “MapReduce” paradigm has made processing Big Data more accessible, but is still limited to the data that is currently available, often only within an organization. Additionally, existing technologies fail to provide fine-grained control over what information is shared outside an organization.
All publications herein are incorporated by reference to the same extent as if each individual publication or patent application were specifically and individually indicated to be incorporated by reference. Where a definition or use of a term in an incorporated reference is inconsistent or contrary to the definition of that term provided herein, the definition of that term provided herein applies and the definition of that term in the reference does not apply.
In some embodiments, the numbers expressing quantities of ingredients, properties such as concentration, reaction conditions, and so forth, used to describe and claim certain embodiments of the invention are to be understood as being modified in some instances by the term “about.” Accordingly, in some embodiments, the numerical parameters set forth in the written description and attached claims are approximations that can vary depending upon the desired properties sought to be obtained by a particular embodiment. In some embodiments, the numerical parameters should be construed in light of the number of reported significant digits and by applying ordinary rounding techniques. Notwithstanding that the numerical ranges and parameters setting forth the broad scope of some embodiments of the invention are approximations, the numerical values set forth in the specific examples are reported as precisely as practicable. The numerical values presented in some embodiments of the invention may contain certain errors necessarily resulting from the standard deviation found in their respective testing measurements.
As used in the description herein and throughout the claims that follow, the meaning of “a,” “an,” and “the” includes plural reference unless the context clearly dictates otherwise. Also, as used in the description herein, the meaning of “in” includes “in” and “on” unless the context clearly dictates otherwise.
The recitation of ranges of values herein is merely intended to serve as a shorthand method of referring individually to each separate value falling within the range. Unless otherwise indicated herein, each individual value is incorporated into the specification as if it were individually recited herein. All methods described herein can be performed in any suitable order unless otherwise indicated herein or otherwise clearly contradicted by context. The use of any and all examples, or exemplary language (e.g. “such as”) provided with respect to certain embodiments herein is intended merely to better illuminate the invention and does not pose a limitation on the scope of the invention otherwise claimed. No language in the specification should be construed as indicating any non-claimed element essential to the practice of the invention.
Groupings of alternative elements or embodiments of the invention disclosed herein are not to be construed as limitations. Each group member can be referred to and claimed individually or in any combination with other members of the group or other elements found herein. One or more members of a group can be included in, or deleted from, a group for reasons of convenience and/or patentability. When any such inclusion or deletion occurs, the specification is herein deemed to contain the group as modified thus fulfilling the written description of all Markush groups used in the appended claims.
Thus, there is still a need for a system that allows for fine-grained access control to big data, which can be effectively and efficiently controlled by multiple parties along a distribution chain, and which allows for the parties to transform or otherwise manipulate the data as desired.